Kelly: From teens, signs of changing times

Mike Kelly is a Record columnist. Contact him at kellym@northjersey.com.

THESE are tough times for kids. But not every warning sign sparks enough rage to capture our collective attention in the same way that December’s murders of first graders in Connecticut or last week’s abduction of a boy in Alabama did.

Sometimes the warnings are far more subtle.

Sometimes they are ignored.

Recently, in North Jersey, three notable warning signs about children came to light.

The first – the promise by high school students not to curse for a month – actually doesn’t seem like a warning at all. It was initially presented as one of those “good news” events, and, in a small way, it was just that.

A group of female students at the Roman Catholic Queen of Peace High School in North Arlington gathered in the school library and in front of cameras from the school’s closed circuit TV system nine days ago to raise their right hands and promise not to utter any expletives for a month.

“So help me God,” the girls declared as they took the no-cursing pledge.

Then several asked a profound question: What about the boys? Why aren’t they taking the same pledge?

Last week, some Queen of Peace boys stepped up and joined their female classmates. No cursing for a month.

The pledge seems lighthearted. But as often happens with stories about kids, a deeper issue lurks underneath. Why did these kids have to resort to a no-cursing promise anyway?

The truth is a sad fact of life that goes far beyond the walls of Queen of Peace High School. The truth is that cursing is now part of the background noise that frames our lives. It’s in our movies, our sporting events, our TV. What once was taboo is now tabbed as normal. And few people seem to mind – except for the students at Queen of Peace. Don’t bank on the rest of America following in their footsteps.

The second warning sign is more ominous. In North Haledon last week, police announced they had launched an investigation of cyber-bullying at Manchester Regional High School. This was hardly a small matter – or just a matter of random messages on the Internet. A girl was urged to kill herself. Several other girls were called “lesbians” and “fat” and “ugly.” One of the targeted boys suffers from autism.

This is not the first time we have heard of cyberbullying – or school bullying in general. Sadly, it won’t be the last.

But unlike traditional, old-school bullying, in which a bully is usually known by his victims, the source of Internet bullying is often anonymous. Basically, a bully hides behind a computer screen and tries to inflict some sort of misery on a vulnerable student.

Thankfully, the police consider this latest incident a potential crime and are not ignoring it or, worse, chalking it up to some sort of serendipitous right of passage by kids. This is serious — and a warning sign. Or as one parent told The Record’s Richard Cowen: “When someone is urging a kid to commit suicide, that’s something that you have to take very seriously.”

Becoming commonplace

But, like cursing, this sort of bullying has become so commonplace that it’s no longer shocking for a police department to go public with an announcement of an investigation. Indeed, it’s hard to weigh what warning sign is worse – the bullying itself or the fact that it has become far too common.

The third warning sign comes from Newark – and this one is tragic, painful and deeply gloomy. A report, released last week by the respected watchdog group Advocates for Children of New Jersey, found that a whopping 76 percent of Newark’s children who were under 5 years old were living in low-income families.

If you think that statistic is bad, consider these others: Seventy-one percent of children born in Newark in 2009, the most recent year such statistics were available, had mothers who were unmarried. (The statewide level for kids born to unwed moms is hardly something to brag about: It’s 36 percent.) Around 70 percent of Newark’s kids are born to moms who have a high school education or less.

Between 2009 and 2011, the number of Newark kids less than 5 years old with no health care coverage rose by 13 percent. By 2011, more than a third of the city’s children with no health care insurance were described as “very young.”

Topping out this portrait of pain is the revelation that in 2009, 40 percent of Newark’s pregnant women received no prenatal care at all or were offered care too late in their pregnancies.

A “bright spot” in this report is that Newark children are “far less likely” to suffer from lead poisoning, thanks to a decade of stepped-up efforts to remove led from homes. Another alleged piece of positive news is that more Newark kids are able to go to preschool, thanks to more government funding.

Comforting? Hardly. These statistics and the pathetic “bright spots” should force us all to ask a question: Is Newark in America or a third-world nation?

The question is not new. Any New Jersey resident who is even remotely honest – and this includes all races – has viewed Newark at one time or another as a place to avoid. But these statistics are yet another reminder that Newark needs everyone’s attention.

That kind of statement will likely not become the centerpiece of a political campaign. But maybe it should.

Like far too may recent warnings about our kids, too many of us offer too many reasons to look away.